A year of Francis: Pope’s humility heightens respect after year

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Pope Francis visits with journalists during the papal flight direct to Rio de Janeiro last year.

Pope Francis blows a kiss from his popemobile as he arrives for the Stations of the Cross event on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. Eighty-five percent of U.S. Catholics have a favorable view of Argentine-born Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday.

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Francis has become renowned for his humility, including his shunning of a palatial residence for a simple apartment. Photos of the pope embracing and kissing a severely disfigured man and celebrating his birthday at the Vatican with three homeless men further endeared people to him.

Youths from Our Lady of Perpetual Help school in Glendale, AZ, mingle after a youth rally that was held during an annual Religious Education Congress at the Anaheim Convention Center in 2007. More than 40,000 Catholic educators and other religious representatives are expected to fill the Anaheim Convention center starting Thursday as part of the Catholic Church's 40th annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress.

The three Catholics’ enthusiasm for Pope Francis reflects his broad international popularity on the eve of his second year as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Eighty-five percent of U.S. Catholics have a favorable view of Argentine-born Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, according to a Pew Research Center poll released last week.

Francis has become renowned for his humility, including his shunning of a palatial residence in favor of a simple apartment. Photos of the pope embracing and kissing a severely disfigured man and the pope celebrating his birthday at the Vatican with three homeless men further endeared people.

His persona and comments also have drawn praise from Catholics across the political and theological spectrum.

Many church liberals applauded Francis’ warning about the “tyranny” of unbridled capitalism and his remark that the church had become “obsessed” with social issues such as gay marriage, abortion and contraception. Still, Francis is viewed as theologically traditional, and there is no indication he will advocate major changes in church teaching.

Even so, the pontiff’s warm, down-to-earth, simple nature, and his message of inclusion rather than exclusion, is changing how people perceive the Catholic Church.

“His ways and fresh approach is appealing to people,” said Greg Walgenbach, director of Life, Justice and Peace for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. “People are drawn to the fact that he’s shaken things up with his simplicity, going back to prayer and standing at the margins with the poor and the outcasts.

“Our teachings tell us if you are present in those places, you will see God.”

Berlier, a member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, said she was surprised and pleased when the pope earlier this year said it’s OK to breastfeed in public places, even churches. And Chimal, active in La Habra’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Roman Catholic Church, said he appreciates Francis’ messages to youth and feels the pope is someone “who anyone would be able to talk with.”

HEALING LOVE

The Rev. Mark Morozowich, dean of the School of Theology and Religious Studies at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., said the church has long faced a problem of being known by many largely for what it is against, rather than what it is for.

“Engaging people in the healing love of Jesus Christ is the primary role of the church,” Morozowich said. “The pope wants to make the church an attractive place for people, so one sees being a Christian as a happy, joyful experience, and one that brings with it great peace and calm.”

George Weigel, a leading Catholic theologian and longtime Vatican observer, offered that Francis is not significantly different from his predecessors, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II.

“Very little in this pontificate that is being presented as ‘new’ is, in fact, new,” Weigel wrote in an email from Rome, where he met with Pope Francis on March 1. “What’s different is the simplicity of the public figure and his message.”

But Larry Cunningham, a professor emeritus of theology at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on church history, said Benedict and Francis “are radically different in terms of their profile and their experience,” and in their personas and tone.

Benedict is a brilliant academic theologian who had relatively little experience ministering to people in the pews, he said. Francis is an extroverted pastor who has spoken one-on-one with many lay Catholics about their lives and understands their concerns.

Francis has made a point of trying to spur discussion among Catholics on matters such as how to minister to same-sex couples, unmarried couples who live together and divorced people, Cunningham said.

Mark Roberts, 48, a gay Catholic from Irvine, said he finds Francis “very refreshing and enlightened and a good example of how we should live our lives.

“Pope Francis seems to embody the teachings of Christ,” said Roberts, a member of St. Joseph Church in Santa Ana.

In interviews with dozens of the region’s Catholics, one word almost always came up: humility.

The pope chose to live in a simple two-room residence rather than an elegant apartment in a palace, drives a 1984 Renault instead of a Mercedes and forgoes traditional papal trappings such as an ermine cape.

“He’s trying to live his life to be an example of Christ in the world,” said Ryan Lilyengren, spokesman for the Diocese of Orange. “And that is inspiring to people.”